SixtyThree
by LadyVegeets
Summary: Some Bulma and Vegeta during the 3 year period before the androids... with a twist.


**SixtyThree,** by LadyVegeets

 **-01-**

Bulma watched as Vegeta shoveled down food, somehow looking regal while doing it. It was a far cry different from the wild way Goku usually ate. Was that because Vegeta was royalty, or…? Not for the first time, Bulma was tempted to ask about Saiyan culture. There was so little she knew. She couldn't ask Son because he knew as much as she did, which was little-to-nothing. In fact, he probably knew even less than she because he wasn't living with the last full-blooded, born and raised Saiyan in the universe. Not that living with Vegeta these past few months since Goku's return from space had given Bulma much insight into Saiyan culture, but she was a scientist, and with keen observation, she watched her newest specimen with a critical eye.

Which was about as far as she got: watching. Vegeta gave her little, stoic and unreadable as a stone slate. If Bulma wanted her curiosity sated, she would need to ask questions. But she wasn't feeling suicidal. Her house guest appeared to be in a particularly foul mood tonight, and probably wouldn't appreciate giving a history lesson.

But Bulma couldn't let a meal pass without some attempt at conversation. "So," she started. "How was training?"

Vegeta's hand stopped dead in the air, half-way raised between plate and mouth. Black eyes swiveled up and pinned her to her seat, as cold and predatory as a shark's. Slender but powerful fingers tightened on the spoon, the metal warping worrisomely.

Shit, touchy subject. "Not well, huh?" Bulma winced in sympathy. Another day, another failed attempt at the Super Saiyan transformation. Vegeta might have had an ego the size of Namek, but even Namek hadn't survived constant blows. Neither would the Saiyan's ego if day after day, month after month, the legendary transformation continued to remain unattainable.

Vegeta sneered at her, not deigning to answer, looking back at the steaming food on the table. Bulma worried her lip between her teeth, debating with herself. She had a theory about why the transformation was so elusive but… did she dare speak it?

Of course she dared.

"Vegeta," she asked, her voice dripping with honeyed tones. "Have you considered that maybe… maybe you can't become a Super Saiyan because… you're a woman?"

Vegeta didn't miss a beat, shoveling another spoonful of rice into her mouth. "No," she said with cold dismissal.

"No?" Bulma repeated, eyebrow raised, surprised by the Saiyan's confidence.

"No," Vegeta confirmed. A bead of sweat from her work out ran down her tan cleavage, disappearing beneath her sport's bra. Her black eyes swung back up to look at Bulma once more. "I can do anything a man can do. And I can do it _better_."

Blue eyes locked with black, both women assessing the other. The room felt suddenly warm and stuffy.

 _Anything…_?

Despite herself, Bulma blushed.

Vegeta didn't appear to notice the unintentional innuendo, and looked away. "Saiyans are warriors," she explained in a rare gesture of sharing. "Male or female, it makes no difference. The legend spoke of a Saiyan, not a gender. My father himself believed the Super Saiyan was my destiny. _Is,_ my destiny," she hastily corrected herself, frowning in displeasure at her own traitorous tongue. She glared down at her food, her appetite lost. Pushing her half-uneaten plate aside, she stood up.

"Where are you going?" Bulma asked. It was unlike Vegeta to leave food unfinished, especially after being in the GR all day.

"To train." The Saiyan headed out the kitchen towards the back door.

"Again? At this hour?" It was obvious that Vegeta was running from something, off to purge whatever emotional turmoil was going on behind those dark eyes in 300 times Earth's gravity. "Vegeta, you need to rest," Bulma protested. "You can't train effectively if you're exhausted."

Vegeta sneered at her, pausing in the doorway. "Don't tell me what I can or cannot do," she snapped with typical churlish acerbity. She stepped outside into the cool evening, and Bulma watched with an exasperated sigh as the impeccably toned woman left.

"Saiyans," Bulma grumbled, flopping down on the counter, pressing her mouth against her arms as she pondered what she was going to do with her stubborn science project.

* * *

~xox~

Vegeta punched the air viciously, gritting her teeth as she fought the harsh gravity in the GR. She ran through an intense routine, slugging an invisible enemy, ducking and weaving out of the way. She took a step forward as she pushed her advantage, only to have her knee buckle and nearly give out on her.

Goddamnit.

" _You need to rest. You can't train effectively if you're exhausted."_

Bulma's irritating advice filtered back into Vegeta's mind, taunting her as incessantly as the blue-haired woman did. Fuck. She was never free of that blasted woman. Bulma was becoming a daily aggravation that she could do without.

Vegeta wiped the sweat from her brow, and that act alone was a challenge with hundreds of Gs bearing down on her overworked limbs. Perhaps she _should_ rest. She had already exceeded her usual training by two hours. No one could accuse her of not doing her best.

No one but herself.

There would be plenty of time to rest when she was dead: like her people were, like her victims were, like Kakarot would be after she had bested him one-on-one in her rightful Super Saiyan form. She would laugh as she stomped on the third class's legs again, watching as he screamed in pain and the golden light bled out of him. His pathetic friends would cry and know fear once more, looking on as their precious 'Goku' couldn't save them. She would laugh most of all when that insipid woman with her soft skin and stupid, pretty sea-foam curls cried and begged her to stop…

Something uncomfortable twisted her stomach. Blue, tear-filled eyes stared up at her, begging, _pleading_ … Vegeta's imagined laughter died as quickly as it had started, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. The vindictive fantasy suddenly held little joy.

She pressed her lips into a grim, thin line, and forced herself into the air to escape her treacherous thoughts. Closing her eyes, she gathered her mental focus, sharpening it to the finest and most severe of points, banishing all thoughts of weakness and blue-haired Earthlings from her mind. Soulless black eyes re-opened to the intense red light of the gravity room, and Vegeta began a new series of grueling katas as she exercised, hovering in the dense air.

* * *

~xox~

 **AN** : beta-read by the lovely **Artephile** / **Marcella-Duchamp.**


End file.
